6 ways to deal with sandy soil in your garden

Water passes through sandy soil quickly, often carrying away nutrients before plants have a chance to use them. But don't worry, there are organic materials and plants you can use to offset the downsides of this type of soil.

• To modify this tendency, enrich sandy soil with organic matter and plan to use a little more fertilizer when growing plants that are heavy feeders.
• Mulches are invaluable for keeping sandy soil moist in hot, dry weather.

Weeds are often easy to pull from sandy soil, although they may surprise you with the size of their root systems.

You can fortify sandy soil with green manures — fast-growing plants that enrich the soil with nutrients and organic matter when they are turned under.

• Try buckwheat in warm weather or sow clover, oats or vetch in the fall. Chop or mow down the plants three weeks before you plan to plant, then turn under the residue.

Because water soaks into sandy soil quickly, plants growing in these soils usually benefit from shorter, more frequent waterings than those in heavier clay soils. Soaker hoses and drip irrigation systems are the easiest and most water-thrifty forms of irrigation.

Some plants prefer sandy soils to heavy soils.

• Among them are annual phlox, artemisia, California poppy, coreopsis, euphorbia, golden aster, Japanese anemone, lamb's ear, oregano, perennial flax, pinks, portulaca, purple loosestrife, red-hot poker, Rosemary, Russian sage, santolina, sea lavender, sedum, snow-in-summer, thyme, tulip, yarrow and yucca.

If you have a ready source of surplus pine logs, you can slow water drainage and the leaching of nutrients from sandy soil with this trick.

• Bury the logs one metre deep under rows of moisture-loving plants like tomatoes or blueberries.
• As the soft wood decays, it will slow drainage and add nutrients.

Especially in warm climates, sandy soils often become infested with nematodes.

• Organically enriched soil helps suppress these parasites, and you should use special soil amendments if they are prevalent in your area.
• Eggshells, crab shells, shrimp hulls and other materials that are rich in chitin — the same material nematode eggs are made of — help bring nematodes under control by stimulating the activity of soil microorganisms that specialize in breaking down chitin.

With these six tricks you can adapt your gardening techniques to sandy soil and grow bountiful and lush plants.